


Scavenged Parts of Broken Hearts

by crowleyshouseplant



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Mace Windu Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-29 20:14:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10861272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: Paxi Sylo meets Mace Windu a second time.





	Scavenged Parts of Broken Hearts

"I found him," you tell the man named Plutt. The clone's hand is in yours, and you can't let go. The feeble beat of his pulse flickers in your palm. A blaster bolt had taken off his helmet and a chunk of his face.

Plutt is skeptical. He leans down, rifling the soldier's belt for his packs and his gear and his food. "He's a goner," he says. The guns in the distance emphasize his words, and promises that you'll be a goner too if you don't hurry up and scurry elsewhere. "Find the good stuff and let's go." Plutt always lands when the battle is almost over so that he has dibs on the good stuff. But it's dangerous. Sometimes the tides turn against him but he still always manages to survive. The kids like you don't always.

He leaves you behind, knowing you'll follow because you have no choice, not since your family lost the farm on Dantooine and you were separated when you fled the war.  You look down at the clone on the ground. Your hands are slick with sweat.

He coughs, his chest convulsing. "Kid," he says.

You have more years to your belt than he does.

"Is there water?" He coughs again. Blood flecks his mouth, and something twists inside you.

You fumble for your bottle, and bring it with shaking hands to his mouth. Water is scarce because Plutt makes sure that everything is scarce. You remember home and the well from which you drank. It was always full, it was always cold, and you miss the taste of its water. You wish you had some of that to share with this dying man, but the earth filled it up and there was nothing you could do.

"Thanks," he murmurs.

You hold his hand until he's gone, and you remember that you need to keep scavenging so you won't be left behind. You only eat as much as you find. You're only worth as much as you bring back. Still, you don't pick him over for scraps that Plutt may have missed. You sit back on your haunches and look at him until you notice a cord of twine tied around his neck. It's a necklace, the pendant of which was hidden under the hard curve of his armor. It's just a smooth piece of wood with a woman's face on it, a Togruta draped in Jedi robes. You tie the necklace around your own neck, and it doesn't feel wrong--it doesn't feel like thieving or scavenging. Pressing your forehead to his, you promise the trooper that you will carry her for him, that she will not be forgotten.

You crawl on all fours up the slope of a steep hill, and gasp. The droid army is relentless. From your vantage point on the hill you see the command center on the ground, and you recognize the robed figure of the Jedi general overseeing a holographic map of the entire battlefield. You can tell at a glance that it's not the Jedi whom the dead soldier wore around his neck. Perhaps she would have been able to keep him safe if she had been there.

This isn't the first Jedi you've seen. The one you had seen had been in the very middle of the conflict, someone alone in the field of battle, saving you. You had given him a drink of water too when he was done. His eyes had smiled at you before he bounded away to continue the fight. Your hand clutches the scrap of cloth that covers your heart. You had drawn him, what you remembered. They were good pieces, and someone had offered you good money for them which you eventually took because you were hungry and scared but you wish you hadn't--you always wish you hadn't.

The Jedi steps forward. You do not recognize them. They shrug out of their long robes, and the wind flutters through the cloth. The lightsaber flashes a bright green and the Jedi is gone, leaping towards the front lines, shielding the soldiers with nothing but the force of their will. You watch because you can't not. You watch the Jedi push the droids back, you hear the orders of the troopers, and this time there is hope. They press on pushing the droids back and soon they are just a glimmering gleam of of green dust as they march away from you. You slid down the hill. There are a few men here, holding the position, but they don't see you as you slip past them towards the robe that was left behind. It is just a piece of cloth, but you can feel something else as you press it to your chest. The hems are caked with dirt. Scorch marks mar the thread.

It is precious to you as you throw it across your shoulders, and you do not die when the battle shifts once more against the Republic forces and the Jedi who leads them. Danger flashes by you as you run through the shadows and, to your left, you see the Jedi fall. The bright sheath of light that lit their retreat falls into darkness. Panic is barely kept in check, and you run until you can barely breathe, right into the arms of Plutt who laughs in your face with his stinking breath as he asks what you found.

He takes the Jedi cloak from you without asking, your grasping hands too weak to clutch it.

He's scornful of the simple rag.

You are convinced it kept you alive.

Once they are off world, Plutt sells it on a backwater planet, swearing that it was the only thing that saved his life. The people here are afraid, swearing they can see the star battles flashing like unnatural meteor showers. The sap who buys Plutt's story is convinced that the robe will keep him and his safe, and pays a whole gold piece plus half his tank of fuel that would have kept him warm in the winter, warmer than a scrap of cloth.

You don't know the way of the Jedi, but you know that this isn't it.

You can't do anything but clench your hands and hate--hate that the robe is gone, that the Jedi who wore the robe is gone, and Plutt, the man who profited from someone's fear.

You later learn that this, also, isn't the way of the Jedi, but by then it's too late.

You follow Plutt who follows battles like the carrion wretch he is. He tells you to find more Jedi robes, and you do as they shrug them from their shoulders, the cloth fluttering from them like the ghosts you know they will become. You don't always know if they live or die. You wonder if they will find you and the things you've stolen from them, the way you've used them to con people into believing they're safe. You wonder if they will chastise your or simply strike you down.

You wonder what the Jedi would say, the one to whom you gave a drink of water. You think he would understand. 

You roll over onto your side, hands clutched to your chest, and squeeze your eyes shut. The man looks down on you. There is no judgment. There is only kindness. And then he is gone, and your eyes widen as your chest tightens and you realize he might already be dead.

Time passes, and you're lucky enough to stumble into the opportunity to steal a ship. You know how to disguise it so that no one knows it's stolen. Once that's done, you set course for Coruscant because that is where the Jedi temple is.

Coruscant is bigger than you ever thought possible. You land your ship and stumble through the streets, eyes unable to comprehend the magnitude of the buildings, the way they go up and up and up. You ask where the Jedi temple is, and the locals point you in the right direction. You pass beneath the Senate building. Something pulls your gaze upwards.

You cannot see the stars here, because the lights from the city are too bright. You shield your eyes from the neon rise, squinting as shards of glass fall over your head, shattering at your feet. You jump, terrified that more is to come, that soon there will be a droid army met by clones, but there is only the sound of people talking. It seems you are the only one who has noticed. You shake the glass dust from your hair, standing on your tip toes as if that would help you see so far and so high.

Light flashes a silver-blue, absorbed by the steady shimmer of purple light. They are not supposed to be here, you know, suddenly, deep in your gut. The fighting spirit tenses through you, and your body wants to dash this way and that way but you don't know where to go. You reach out with your hand and no one is more surprised than you when your palm catches a lightsaber. Above you there are only blue flashes, and an agonized scream as a shadow is flung from the building, to fall and fall and fall.

Down in the street, you follow his course, making the calculations in your head about where he might land. Your feet pound the pavement like the skidding heartbeat beneath your skin. He's where you calculated he'd be, caught in a garbage heap.

His Jedi robes smoke. The hand that should have been holding his lightsaber is gone. You scramble upwards, gagging on the stench of charred skin, as you cradle the man's head in your palms. You know him. You have always known it was him.

His skin is burned, already scarring in fractal patterns. Pain has silenced him. You look around. You don't know what to do, so you do the first thing that makes sense. You drag him down from the garbage. You make a gurney that you can pull, and you go towards the Jedi temple because you're not stupid. The authorities won't help, they never do. But the Temple is sanctuary, and you will find it for this man, and he will offer it to you in turn.

You can see it rising on the horizon when it starts to burn. You stop. You can't believe this is happening. It was supposed to be safe here.

You drop to your knees beside the man. You hold his hand, clutching it to you as the Temple burns. He stirs, his eyes opens as he props himself up on his elbow. He does not seem surprised to see the black smoke, but there are tears. You share a glance. There's nothing you can do--not even the Jedi who had decimated an entire army of droids. 

You wipe your eyes, your nose, your mouth. There is no time. He rises shakily to his feet, and with him leaning on your should, you bring him to the ship you stole, the only thing that counts as home. You make him as comfortable as you can in the hold. You bring pillows and, carefully, you cut the robe from him. It still smokes from his injuries. You fold it carefully and set it aside. You put bacta gel on his burns. He needs a full tank, but you don't know where to go for that. You probably couldn't afford it anyway.

You offer him his lightsaber but he shakes his head. You clip it to your belt and return to the pilot seat while he leans back and rests in the back.

You receive permission to leave, and so you do. You don't know where to go so you hide in hyperspace. 

When he wakes, he tells you that his name is Mace Windu and that he was on the Jedi Counsel. You knew he was important--this comes as no surprise to you. He recognizes you from before, and asks about you. You tell him how you lost your family too. He looks at you for a moment. "I'm sorry."

You nod. 

Eventually, you make your way to the systems on the Outer Rim at least until you know what to do. You think that Mace will leave you to join important people, but he never does. You think he doesn't know who to trust because you wouldn't either, if you were him. You wouldn't know where to go. You wouldn't even know what to do. 

"We can't do nothing," he says. He has just finished taking apart his lightsaber, using its parts to fix up your ship so that it won't creak when you bank to the right. He has strung the kyber crystal around his neck, tucking it under the folds of his tunic. He looks incomplete without his Jedi robe, but the one you found him in is folded away somewhere. Not that he could wear it safely anyway, even if he wanted to. 

You nod. You feel like you're almost ready for anything.

You start small. You identify the smugglers who aid the Resistance, and you guard them from the Empire lackeys who cause them trouble and the pirates who care only about themselves. You hope, distantly, that you'll run into Plutt but later you find out that he's grounded himself on Jakku. You're disappointed, and then guilty for being disappointed. That part of your life is behind you, and there it should stay.

Later, Mace tells you that they are doing the work of the Wardens of the Sky, and you never imagined that you would be doing something that sounded so important.

He passes intel to an agent named Fulcrum, who sometimes asks them for more. Sometimes Mace says no, sometimes he says yes but never without asking you. You like that. You've grown up a lot but compared to Mace, you're still just a kid--not that he ever treats you like one.

At night, when you can't sleep, you see him sometimes, his hand spread over the thick glass windows of your ship. You wonder if he's reaching out to the Force, seeking a shatterpoint or remembering the ones he had found, and wondering if he had done the right thing. He doesn't share about his past often, but you see it haunts him. You wonder if you're a shatterpoint, even if just a small one, and the thought swiftly leaves you as you see how regret and doubt haunt his features, pooling in the hollows of his cheeks.

You didn't know, you want to tell him. It's not your fault. You say nothing because he wants to be alone. He saves these moments when he thinks that you will not be there to see, and so you keep his secret and his vigil.

As the years go by, he tells you little things about the Jedi Order. How they had made their own cloaks with their own hands on their own looms before the war had come and consumed them all.

Maybe it wasn't just superstition. Maybe the cloaks, infused with the power of the Jedi themselves, really did keep people safe. You almost tell him how you collected the forgotten robes of the Jedi, but bite your tongue. Shame still curdles in your belly and you think with guilt how you've still kept his charred robe safely folded in the hull of your ship.

Once, the necklace you took falls from your neck, the cord worn thin and old. Mace catches it in his palm, and stares upon the image. It is faded now, hidden against your skin for so long, but she is still recognizable. "Where did you get this?" 

"From a dying clone," you say.

Mace nods, his hands gripping the portrait. "Of course." He opened his hand to look into her eyes. "They always did say Master Shaak Ti valued the life a clone."

Self accusation hardens his eyes as he returns the necklace to you. You know that Mace valued the life of a clone. You know this because he saved you when he didn't know your name, when you were just some kid watching a battle instead of running to safety.

Years pass. Grey creeps into the beard he's grown. You're now a young adult with a practiced dashing smile that will charm anyone. In Mos Eisely, you try to make contact with a Corellian freighter, hopeful that one good turn would deserve another--hopefully in the form of a young and eager new recruit for the Resistance.

The pilot, Han Solo, is not so easily convinced. They meet in the spaceport's rowdy cantina, where the music is too loud and the patrons too rude. He slouches in front of Mace, hands folded beneath his head, boots propped up on the table--the very image of arrogance. His Wookiee copilot growls at him, and you swear you can see Mace looking at him out of the corner of his eye, that they speak to each other without words. 

You have never been strong in the Force, so you don't understand what passes between them, just that maybe they had once known of each other dozens of lifetimes ago. But Mace turns his perceptive eye upon Han, and you realize that he feels something about that young man, something beyond the petty irritation that is currently rising up in you.

Mace retreats after Solo declines his offer, and you linger for a scathing glance backwards.

Solo is immune, only jauntily asking, "What are you doing with that old man? Maybe you should think about joining your lot with us, if you're the gambling type."

He's caught you by surprise. You can only say, with startling truth and clarity that, "I found him when he needed someone. He's my friend."

The Wookiee nods, saying something you don't quite catch. He knows, you realize with a chill, he knows who he is and from where he came from. He knows what he's lost--and what you've built together.

"You need new friends," Solo says with a laugh.

You shake your head. You don't, so you leave Solo behind. You join Mace in the cockpit, sliding into the seat beside him. He's nearly smiling as he leaps into hyperspace.

"What is it?" you ask.

"I have new hope." He turns towards you. His eyes are wet. "I did not think to see it again in my lifetime."

You smile back at him as you reach for his hand, holding it in your own. You hope he's right. You hope you can both find peace before the end. You trust Mace. He can see through the Force, the delicate pane of glass that holds the future of their lives together. You breathe and believe. "We will," you say beneath the silver streams of starlight.  


End file.
